Myrna Báez

"Tríptico (Retrato de América Báez)" (1972)

Biography

Painter, printmaker, and teacher. Báez earned her Bachelor of Sciences from the University of Puerto Rico and in 1951 went to Madrid to study medicine. There, she decided instead to enter the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. In 1959, having returned to Puerto Rico, she joined the Graphic Arts Workshop at the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture and became an apprentice to maestro Lorenzo Homar. She also studied at the Pratt Graphics Center in New York. Báez has taught at Sacred Heart University and the Art Students League of San Juan and has been chair of the Fine Arts Section of the Ateneo Puertorriqueño; she is a founding member of the Graphic Artists Association of Puerto Rico. Since 1988 she has been artist-in-residence at the Sacred Heart University, which awarded her an honorary doctorate in 2000. An extraordinary colorist, Báez is known for her technical experimentation in painting and printmaking and her intense concern for light in her depiction of ambiguous interior spaces that layer and merge the landscape and the human figure.